


I felt as though she was nobody special

by sentimatra



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Asher just wants his buddies around him, Bisexual, Bisexual Female Character of Color, F/F, Fluff, Laurel is cunning & likes to tease Michaela, Michaela knows she's smart, Michaela's toned arms in later chapters, PTSD, Slow Burn, everyone just wants to be warm and happy, honestly, idk here it is, lauraela, platonic, romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 04:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5361257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimatra/pseuds/sentimatra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(HIATUS. Until HTGAWM gives me more laurela material to work with cuz I'm p blocked with this one.)<br/>“I looked at her and for a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again.”<br/>-Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You</p><p>slow-burn Laurel x Michaela</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unprescribed Laughter

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully something a couple of chapters long for them. These will be really just loosely connected drabbles. I'm crossing my fingers that we get some sort of backstory thing for Michaela in the show because I feel like I'm guessing/grasping for too much with her. I'll say here that it's my headcanon that aside from having to study to be at the top of her class, as a kid she loved reading about nearly everything, hence the "I know I'm smart" she says in one of the episodes, so there's just a bunch of thoughts that she sorts through and plucks from when necessary. I also go along with the canon one-liner that indicated she went to med-school but very loosely as I'm nowhere close to a med-student. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

_“One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.”_

_\- Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage_

 

It's probably the weariness that comes with balancing secret murder and finals, or the time they've spent over cases in near orbit of each other in Keating's office; whichever it is, Michaela would admit that Laurel has become used to having this...opposing force in her space (blocking doors, hallways, whichever). From the first time Laurel raised her hand in Keating’s class. Michaela thought Laurel was an odd girl, and that hasn't changed as a simple descriptor. She _is_ an odd girl.

But now it's due to the fact that Laurel knows how to hide her emotions too well, curious yet demure.  Sometimes Michaela pairs Laurel's nature with the way a cat slinks around, form echoing the finesse and control of something larger and more dangerous.  

 

If Laurel was turned inside out--

Wait, no. Michaela cringes.

If Laurel wore most of her intent on her face from the beginning, truthfully they would've gotten nowhere.

 

Michaela gets that Laurel needs to be sneaky to know things the rest of the Five doesn't, but Annalise promoting her to "Bonnie" status rubs Michaela the wrong way aside from the fact that it wasn't her. She can think about something that isn't related to her own gain for like more than an hour at a time.

 

She remembers Laurel stooping down to at least try to get her to think rationally, to stop crying while keeping a shaky-necessary-calm, even though Sam's body was in their peripheral view and all Michaela could remember was how easy it had been to shove him once he was close enough.

 

How fast it'd happened.

 

Michaela feels the stickiness of the pool of blood, hears the hushed yet harsh whispers and feels like her body is just out of reach and like she should've been OVER this reaction by now but she's still flashing back. Her medical student mind tries to rationalize, pooling her brain with words memorized from lectures.

 

_PTSD is chronic, incurable--_

_\--intrusive memory--_

_warranted by the individual reliving the event as if it's happening again--_

_PTSD is nothing more_

_than an imbalance--_

_in the brain of--_

 

She hears papers flutter and smack to the floor and looks down upon someone calling her name, feeling like she’s touched-down on Earth from hurtling around the Moon. The file she was holding and it's contents are fanned out at her feet.

 

"Michaela, what's wrong?"

 

They said it'd take the Prozac a couple of weeks if not longer to start working but Michaela takes even less than the recommended dosage or none at all because some days are calm as an ocean’s deep.

 

She’d mistaken the calm for safety and had forgotten what lurked in depths.

 

"Michaela."

 

A light touch on her shoulder, a familiar, soft-but-firm voice.

 

Michaela turns and meets those green puppy-dog eyes swirling with concern. Possibly even pity, Laurel's perfectly sculpted eyebrows lifting up, the line of her mouth a faint grimace. Michaela steps back, out of Laurel's touch and smiles like she's chewing glass. "I'm fine. I just remembered something I forgot to do that's super important. Class related."

 

Laurel's brow furrows (because, yeah, Michaela! She's totally gonna' leave you alone with _that_  vague-as-fuck excuse) and she nods, the cut of her cheekbones making her disbelief seem more severe. She puts a hand on her hip and glances around the room. Asher is asleep on the reclining couch, Wes and Connor had looked up when Michaela had dropped the files but aren't looking over now so much as sneaking slightly concerned glances.

Michaela can see the joke ready on the tip of Connor’s tongue. She picks up the files smoothly and smiles, getting the intended result of Wes and Connor going back to their work, Connor thinking better of the barb but giving her one last knowing look before focusing on his papers again.

 

She switches her attention back to the girl that still won’t stop looking at her.

 

"I'm _fine_ , _Lauren_." Michaela hopes she turns around, hopes she ignores her. She doesn’t need her pity or her scrutiny.

 

Laurel smiles the way she had when Michaela had asked her for those outlines, corner of her mouth quirking up tightly and shook her head.

"Out of the goodness of my heart, I'll still offer you a ride back home."

 

That's it. There's no, ‘you're not fine', because it’s in the tilt of Laurel’s head and hip. Michaela, remembering her anger at how much Laurel ‘knew’, folds her arms.

"I'll take a cab."

 

Laurel knows Michaela is stubborn as a brick wall so her shoulders slump a tad as she rolls her eyes.

 

"Suit yourself."

 

\--

 

Michaela's awake at 12 AM because she took a very small dose of Prozac so she'd stop fearing the shapes the shadows took on her wall. Now she can’t find the warmth of sleep.

 

She goes to her living room, and slumps onto the couch in front of the TV. There's a knock at her door almost a minute after and fear shoots through her. She breathes in and out slowly through her nose and peers through after a second of the peephole to see someone she'd still rather not see. Michaela opens the door anyway, intending to shut it in their face just as quickly.

 

"I texted you," Laurel says with a sheepish shrug, her hair maybe a little disheveled from her own hands. (Michaela knows she does the hair raking thing more frequently when she's nervous.)

 

Or maybe it had been Frank's hands?

 

Michaela’s mouth twists into a frown. "My phone was on silent." She wraps her blanket tighter around herself and shifts her weight to her other foot, feeling under-dressed for this encounter.

 

You could do it, she thinks, You could shut the door right now in Miss Know-It-All's stupidly perfectly angular face--

 

Laurel chuckles.

 

"What's so funny?"

 

"Um, sorry. Your, uh...," Laurel gestures delicately with both of her hands, framing Michaela's shoulders, "muttering and the blanket around your shoulders makes you look like a _viejita_." Her Spanish comes out in something between a gross snicker and a giggle that sounds so terribly human--unrehearsed--that Michaela's nerve to close the door falters.

"'Old woman'? Michaela digs up her elementary-level knowledge Spanish. ”Did you just call me an old lady?"

 

"A little old lady. It's a good thing? I mean, my abuela's pretty cool."

 

"I can't _believe_ you came to insult me in my _own_ home."

 

"Technically not IN your home right now. Standing out here. In the cold."

 

Laurel does that puppy-dog thing again, pouting a little on purpose and Michaela sucks her lips over her teeth in an attempt to stay straight faced.  She sighs.

 

"What do you want?"

 

"Wanted to check in to see if you were okay." Laurel clasps her fingers together and shrugs with one shoulder. “Is that allowed?”

 

Michaela for the past five minutes has been working up the energy to just slam the door but it's just not working and she's remembering the shadows on her wall. She just rolls her eyes and steps back into her apartment, Laurel following her inside after a beat and letting the door close behind her.

 

Michaela sits on the couch, and Laurel takes in the apartment again, the first time being at their "study party" which turned into a sleepover. Laurel leaves a cushion in between them when she sits down and waits for Michaela to speak. When she does, Michaela keeps her eyes on the TV.

 

"How do I have the utmost certainty that you're not here as 'replacement Bonnie',” she spits.

 

Laurel to her credit looks a bit sad, a bit put out by the insinuation but it also doesn’t seem a surprise to her. She sighs. "I can say, 'I'm not', as many times as you'd like but you probably wouldn't believe me anyway."

 

Michaela raises her eyebrows and nods still looking at the TV. It’s on mute and there’s an infomercial playing for a young-adult encyclopedia set Michaela vaguely remembers her mom ordering for her when she was 13. Only about half of them had ever arrived and it was weirdly the “L” through “Z” ones.

 

At that time in her life, a lot of things felt incomplete to her.

 

She turns to look at Laurel in her green sweater and black jeans, the flickering TV light brightening her profile. The latina’s green eyes glitter at her in the dark curiously. Waiting. Michaela scrutinizes.

 

_lau•rel: any tree of the genus Laurus:_

_see: Laurus nobilis_

_a symbol of highest status._

_an emblem of prosperity and fame._

_a symbol of victory._

 

Laurel waits still and Michaela folds because she’s not so sure Laurel would spread the fact that Michaela can’t sleep because she’s kind of on medication for PTSD.

 

“Kind of”, because she skips doses. “Kind of”, because she’s scared of having to take this thing for the rest of her life. Of not being whatever normal was for her before that.

 

She only tells Laurel the first half though and-

“I can’t ...sleep right when I’m on it.”

 

That slips out because it seems more grey than black. Laurel can read into it if she wants, (which she will because she’s Laurel) but it isn’t Michaela giving all of herself away.

 

Laurel’s eyebrows screw together over her eyes in sympathy and Michaela holds up a finger to hopefully put this pity party to a screeching halt.

“Don’t. Pity me.” The words grind out maybe a bit more severely than intended because it’s late and Michaela’s irritated at everything. Laurel’s eyebrows raise slowly back up but she still looks concerned. “I don’t need sympathy,” Michaela slumps into the side of the couch and wraps her blanket tighter around herself. “Everybody went through shit, I know it isn’t just me.”

Even Annalise must have nightmares sleeping in those silk sheets, Michaela was sure.

Laurel looks at the TV, at Michaela’s pathetic form sunken into the corner of the couch. She scoots carefully over the empty cushion but keeps at least two feet between them, approaching her like Michaela might lash out at any minute. Michaela resolutely stares at the TV and sinks further into her blanket, bringing it over her nose.

 

“Michaela.”

 

Michaela’s heart flutters without her fucking permission and she bites her bottom lip. She looks up at the ceiling, the wall, anywhere that isn’t in Laurel’s direction.

 

“ _Michaela_.”

 

Shit.

Michaela feels her head turning to Laurel but she still peers out of the blanket, glaring suspiciously. Mirth dances in Laurel’s eyes as she reaches out to pull the blanket down from Michaela’s face. Michaela’s glare subsides to a scowl and she’s very aware of the foot-or-so between their faces as Laurel makes sure she’s looking at her.

 

“Your pain isn’t less important just because others have pain. You’re allowed to be human. Just like everyone else.”

 

Michaela tenses. _‘Human’_. “What is that supposed to mean?”

 

Laurel screws her eyes shut and breathes out through her nose. She opens them after a bit and holds her hands up in front of her as some sort of white flag. “ Oh my God. It means. That you don’t have sit here alone or experience this alone. You can call _me_ , or Wes or… maybe not Connor. Or Asher. Wes and I talk to each other. It helps.”

 

Michaela settles back against the couch arms folded, “I’m not calling or texting anybody.”

 

_I can help myself._

 

She purses her lips and unmutes the TV, a laugh track filling the room from the sitcom that was on. She hopes Laurel gets the message that she should take her exit now but she looks over and Laurel has her arms folded as well, tossing her hair over shoulder, like she’s saying,

_Well, I’m not leaving._

It’s childish what ensues next, Laurel kicking out her legs so that she takes up the rest of the couch, legs in Michaela’s lap. Michaela growls and shoves at them to no avail, huffing and sinking deeper into her blanket, trying to ignore the warmth in her stomach.

After ten minutes they actually start paying attention to the show and Laurel finds one of the gags so funny that she does that terrible snicker-giggle again. Michaela contains a laugh in a snort and straightens out her face but Laurel notices.

 

“What was that?”

 

“Me???” Michaela gapes, indignant but smirking. “What about you?” She mimics Laurel’s snicker-giggle terribly making herself laugh, and Laurel pouts.

 

“I do _not_ sound like that.”

 

Michaela continues to laugh up until she snorts. At this Laurel’s eyes widen and she starts snickering again which....makes Michaela keep snorting and they’re just a mess.

 

Michaela nods off a bit after that, head resting back on the couch and Laurel soon after.

\--

 

Laurel wakes to Michaela’s feet jamming into her right armpit, her head on the opposite arm of the couch. Her mouth is wide open, and she’s snoring softly her arms hanging over the couch’s edge.

 

 _So refined_ , Laurel thinks, snickering softly. Apparently not softly enough because Michaela’s eyelids twitch, her eyebrows screwing down and Laurel can tell she’s at least partly awake because her snoring halts. She still doesn’t open her eyes but her arms lift slowly to make sure her head-wrap is still in place.

Laurel sees the flex of Michaela’s bicep, is reminded of how toned Michaela is and zones out slightly. Michaela kicks her in the side and Laurel realizes with a grunt that she’s missed something Michaela said. Her eyes are open and bleary and she has a sweet smile on her face.

“Thinking of leavin’ anytime soon?” Michaela asks pointedly, her southern accent faint but there.

“‘Leavin’?” Laurel rasps teasingly and gets two feet kicking her in the ribs repeatedly until she tumbles rather ungracefully off the couch.

 

She does have class in 45 minutes though, she realizes looking down at her phone and leaves in a rush. By the time the door swings shut, Michaela’s already falling back asleep with a smile on her face.

  



	2. my desires have invented new desires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yoga, cooking, and a slight misunderstanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kind of struggling with this since it was Laurel's chapter (and because I just finished finals week so I'm mentally exhausted). I think I like writing from inside Michaela's mind better. I don't want this fic to stagnate because I really want to contribute to there being more Michaela x Laurel fanfic but also I feel like I might be better at writing long one-shots instead of these diced up chapters. (Haha yay for late learning about your writing habits). 
> 
> I may write only from Michaela's perspective in the coming chapters, or I may just start doing a handful of Michaela x Laurel one-shots as sort of spec fic ? getting to know their characters and how they interact....b/c they're more nuanced and I want to treat that well. I also feel like these chapters are a whole lot of rambling about nothing haha.
> 
> Thanks for reading though! I appreciate it.

After Annalise is shot and Wes hightails it--the Five are indefinitely disbanded, Wes is nowhere to be seen and Laurel just goes through the motions of her classes. She has Pilates with Michaela sometimes but the first couple of classes they don’t talk and Laurel’s focusing on trying to stay in the poses for more than five seconds.

 

During the fifth week, after Laurel falls out of the Jack-Knife position and lands on her shoulder with a grunt, she’s seriously considering switching to something more basic. She’s at the back so she only faintly registers the instructor declaring that it was “time for Partner Pilates”. 

 

Her light is obscured by someone’s head, and she startles. 

 

“Michaela...?”

 

It’s hard to recognize someone when their head is upside-down over yours. 

 

It _is_ Michaela though, hair pulled back in a bun, smiling tightly. “We need to talk.”

 

 

They’re in a Chest Stretch back-to-back, Michaela’s hands on Laurel’s knees and Laurel’s hands back on Michaela’s knees and she doesn’t really know how to turn the 15-year-old boy part of her mind off right now. She decides to actually listen to Michaela’s worried rambling about Wes. 

 

“You would know where he is right? He didn’t say anything to me but he talks more to you so I just figured--”

 

“No.”

 

Laurel can feel Michaela turn her head a little bit, her fingertips slightly digging into the knees of Laurel’s yoga pants.  

 

“What?”

 

“No. He hasn’t contacted me at all. I don’t know where he is.” Laurel shrugs. “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s just. Something he had to do.” She looks down at her feet. “He’s hurting a lot.”

 

Michaela’s quiet until they come out of the pose, going into partner plank-push ups. Laurel planks while Michaela does her five push-ups and does her best to disguise her admiration of Michaela’s arms.

 

“I wish I could run away from my problems,” Michaela mutters, on her third push-up.

 

Laurel’s eyes narrow, “Pretty sure Wes still has a bunch to deal with, even without Annalise.”

 

Michaela meets her eyes and nods. “ I know. But you _know_ what I mean.”

 

“I do.”

 

Laurel gives Michaela a ride home after Pilates, they both smell like sweat and Laurel can’t wait to get home to take a shower. Halfway there, Michaela’s phone buzzes. Laurel has to keep her eyes on the intersection they’re going through so she can’t exactly be as nosy as she’d like to, but Michaela sighs so maybe it wasn’t a good text?

 

“Can I-? Could I...possibly...stay over at yours tonight?”Michaela asks, staring at the dashboard.

 

“Uh…” Oh.

 

“If you’re expecting Frank that’s fine I just--,” she looks down at her phone. “I’m trying to avoid Caleb.”

 

Laurel’s protectiveness flares and her grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Is he stalking you? Has he tried to hurt you?”

 

“ _Hey_. No. That’s not it at all.” Michaela shook her head and looks at Laurel with a small smile that might be fond that fades when she looks back down at her phone. “I just felt like this thing with him would have more _feelings_ but now I just...don’t feel what _he’s_ feeling. And I don’t think I can say that to him right now.”

 

“So you’re avoiding him.”

 

Michaela bites her lip. “I wouldn’t say _that.”_

 

Laurel shakes her head as she watches the light at the intersection. The air of the car is still as she mulls it over. Michaela figdets, fingers tapping on her car door’s armrest.

 

“Do you need to stop by your place to get clothes…?” Laurel acquiesces. “ Or…?”  
  
Michaela breathes out of sigh of relief and nods. The “thanks” she utters is small and said as she slips out the door to get her stuff, so Laurel thinks she probably imagined it. 

 

\--

 

Laurel showers first, despite Michaela whining about feeling icky. Laurel realizes as she lathers her hair that Michaela, left to her own devices in Laurel’s apartment might be a little bit nosy. 

 

It _was_ a nice apartment for what her father’s money could get her but she didn’t quite feel like it was “hers”. She’d attempted to decorate with photos of the family she actually got along with (i.e. her cousins and her abuela) but those only stretched so far. Aside from photographs her abuela had decorated her own room in the Castillo Manor with glass statuettes and votives. She’d given Laurel a glass rose no bigger than the width of her palm that Laurel kept in her room in a case. She’d decided, since she’d be too nervous having a collection of glass around her apartment, to go with non-glass rose sculptures. 

 

Michaela was admiring the one on Laurel’s coffee table, a silver rosehead with the stem curled underneath it three times as a base. 

 

“Where are all your real flowers?” Michaela says, glancing around the apartment. 

 

Laurel opens her mouth like she’s expecting an easy answer to fall out, but there’s a gap between her thoughts and her mouth. She guesses she hadn’t lingered on that fact before. 

Frank had thought they were “nice” the times he’d been over, but he never stayed long enough to examine them. He was more focused on how their bodies looked together.

  
Laurel meets Michaela’s deep brown eyes. Realizes she hasn’t answered the question yet. She shrugs.

  
“I just don’t...have any?” She’d figured lawyering would keep her busy enough to forget about taking care of plants. 

 

She wasn’t exactly wrong.

 

Michaela tilts her head at her ever so slightly. Laurel knows she has to be thinking on the irony of all the flower statuettes, yet no flowers. She _must_ be itching to say something scathing about it. But Michaela’s eyebrows just raise in dismissal of the thought and the words on the tip of her tongue, walking past Laurel into the bathroom.

 

\--

 

"So, _Lauren,_ what's on the agenda for tonight?" Michaela’s voice comes from Laurel’s right where Michaela’s leaning forward on the back of the couch. Laurel smells lavender when Michaela leans a bit closer.

 

She’s wearing the same pajama pants as the night of the sleepover, but a sleeveless purple shirt with her last name printed on to the back. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail.

 

 Laurel looks away to avoid staring at Michaela’s arms (again) and rolls her eyes.

 

"Well," she starts ,eyes on the tv screen, "the first thing on our list is for you to stop calling me ‘Lauren’."

 

"Or what?" Michaela, with all the verbiage of a petulant child, sits down with grace on the cushion on the opposite end of the couch.

 

Laurel turns to look at Michaela on the commercial break to find that Michaela's already looking back, daring her with the arch of one finely sculpted eyebrow. 

 

"I'll start calling you 'Mickey'."

 

Michaela's cringes, gags. "Ew. FINE. You're no fun."

 

"So I've been told."

 

Michaela stops talking for long enough that Laurel can slip back into the show she’s watching; a crime drama featuring a rough-voiced female detective and an overly analytical female Medical Examiner. Right when the M.E. starts lecturing the detective, Michaela plants her socked feet into Laurel’s lap.

 

“Lauuurellll.”

Laurel sighs. “Whaaatttt?”

 

“Don’t you take a break from ‘crime’ related things ever? What else do you _do_?”

 

Laurel’s about to reply in an equally sassy manner when she notices the show switch to the M.E. digging through a corpse for a bullet. It isn’t gratuitous blood or even a shot of a gory wound so she thought she’d be okay, but she gets a bit queasy when it’s paired with the cast’s utterings of _“murder weapon”_ and _“entry and exit marks”_ and flips the channel quickly to whatever she had on before to stop the memories from assaulting her. 

 

She focuses back on Michaela with a forced smile. The cooking channel goes on in the background, a rerun of a _Paula Deen_ episode on pie.

 

“What else do you _propose_ , Michaela?” Laurel replies, a little shaky on the sentence’s delivery but she would never admit that. She knows she can’t hide her weariness for the whole night.

 

Michaela straightens, welcoming this challenge, however rhetorical the question may be. Her eyes flit to the screen where Paula’s adding “a stick of butter” and looks back at Laurel with a sly smile.

 

“Cooking,” her guest declares.

 

Michaela must know that this is only a temporary salve, that Laurel _will_ go back to over-thinking; about how differently that night could’ve gone down had Laurel taken that gun. 

 

Calculating all the endless outcomes had any of them but Wes shot Annalise. 

 

Michaela’s eyes are knowing, but she posits, “I’m hungry. You don’t want your guest to starve, Laurel.”

 

Laurel sighs, long-suffering and pushes Michaela’s feet off her lap to get up.

 

 

 

Michaela pokes around Laurel’s kitchen unabashedly, sighing at the nearly empty fridge but tugging out frozen chicken that Laurel forgot she had since she usually ate out. There’s an onion that’s scrounged up and garlic. Laurel pulls out rice from under the cupboard. 

 

Just rice though. No beans (she’d eaten the last of them a couple of days ago).  
  
Michaela stares at the chicken, then the rice, brow lowering over her eyes as she realizes something missing. She looks at Laurel like Laurel’s sure her abuela would.

 

“Your lack of _frijoles_ is disturbing.”

 

Laurel’s eyebrows raise and she coughs out something between a laugh and a scoff in surprise as she puts the chicken in the microwave to defrost. “Stereotype me in my home, why don’t you.”

 

“Beans are essential in _any_ minority diet,” Michaela says, chopping the onion. “You and I both know that.”

 

Laurel mimics Michaela, high-pitched, slightly irritating, as she prepares a pot of boiling water for the rice. “Still stereotyping Latinas everywhere, Michaela, thanks for that.”

 

“FYI, my father--my _adoptive_ father anyway, is Afro-Mexican. My mother is African American and Creole.” Michaela tosses the information so easily out as she continues to dice the onion. “I know that doesn’t make me an ‘honorary Latina’ but I know _something_ about when you should or shouldn’t have beans on your plate.” 

 

Michaela's still focusing on the onion but Laurel’s turned towards her as she waits for the water to boil. She smiles, then chuckles. 

 

“What’s so funny?”

 

“You’re right. My abuela would have a fit when we’d only have rice on table. She threw a potato that she’d been peeling in the kitchen at my father one time because he was arguing with her about it. ”

 

Michaela chuckles, “Did it hit?”

 

“Yeah.” She mimes the potato as her hand making contact with her forehead and laughs. ”He deserved it though. I think she should’ve thrown at least two more.”

 

They laugh and stand in companionable silence save for the hum of the chicken rotating in the microwave. Laurel watches the chicken’s timer then her gaze moves to the set of Michaela’s shoulders. The back of her neck.

 

She halts her train of thought when Michaela turns on her heel to dump the onions in a bowl, sliced to fourth-of-an-inch cubes and washes her hands. 

 

With how Michaela holds herself, Laurel guesses that she might have done dancing at some point in her life because she seems very comfortable with her body. Laurel on the other hand isn’t so sure she radiates confidence when she isn’t in public. Being a lawyer was, in a sense, as strenuous as being a performer with the way Miss Keating demanded a courtroom’s attention. 

 

Where did this leave them as lawyers with Miss Keating recuperating and the Five on hiatus? Would they be as effective in the long run?

 

Michaela pinches Laurel’s arm as she walks by to check on the rice (since Laurel wasn’t). 

 

“You were doing it again,” Michaela says, putting the lid back on the pot.

 

Laurel still hasn’t moved from where she is near the stove so she’s at Michaela’s left, closer than normal. 

 

“Doing what?”

 

“You know what,” Michaela’s still looking down at the stove.

 

Laurel realizes what Michaela’s talking about and she scowls. 

 

“I can’t _turn my brain off_ , Michaela.”

 

Michaela opens her mouth as if she’s going to say something, then closes it, giving Laurel flashbacks to whatever Michaela didn’t say about the silver rose.

 

It annoyed her when Michaela visibly struggled with being blunt. 

 

“Just say whatever you want to say, Michaela.”

 

Michaela wrinkles her nose and looks at the pot of rice. “There are...ways...to distract yourself. Not necessarily _good_ ways, but--intimate...ways.”

 

Laurel’s eyes narrow at Michaela’s bashfulness then she realizes--Michaela must be talking about sex.

 

“Really, Michaela? Yeah. Okay. Let me just phone Frank up right now and tell him we’re gonna go at it with you here.”

 

Michaela makes a disgusted face and turns away walking to the sink. She waves her hand at Laurel, “Forget I said anything. That’s why I didn’t _want_ to say it.”

 

Laurel smirks at Michaela’s discomfort. “Or maybe you didn’t mean Frank?”

 

“Who else would I--,” Michaela’s eyes widen. “Oh. _Oh, you’re--”_

 

Laurel shrugs. “You did leave the statement pretty open.”

 

Michaela massages her temples, screwing her eyes shut and laughs a bit in disbelief. “Whatever. I wasn’t offering up _myself_.” 

 

The microwave beeps but Laurel ignores it, trying to keep from laughing as she talks. “If Caleb doesn’t do a good enough job--”

Michaela walks briskly to get the chicken out of the microwave.  
  
“This conversation ends _here._ ”

 

Laurel snickers but gives Michaela this one thing. Flustered-Michaela was as fun as she’d thought she’d be.

 

 

 


	3. I come to make you smile in the freakiest manner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J. Lo, Ja Rule and car trips and cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh....it's been a while. My bad :I . I've been doing numerous life things. HTGAWM needs to come back soon so I can get some more material.

_ "There is nothing more seductive—and dangerous—than being listened to." _

_ Donald Antrim, The Verificationist _

\--  
  


Michaela had questioned her sexuality more than once. There was Susie with the huge afro and hazel eyes in middle school; at Yale, it was Lara the fashion major with the bob-cut and glittery,  galaxy eyes. Both of those infatuations died because Michaela would start making lists of what they would have to face as a lesbian/queer couple and it just...wasn't worth catching feelings. She'd stuff the emotions down with every shiny new boyfriend with accolades, thinking that if she could just secure her future this way, have the picture-perfect-hetero-wedding she could be okay. Because it was an achievement and Michaela loved the feeling of SUCCESS.

She had a list of what she looked for in men (she liked making lists; it was therapeutic).

The list consisted of four _important_ points:

  * the cut of their jaw 
  * their intellect
  * their achievement and 
  * their eyes.



Caleb was Michaela's fix for Laurel sneaking onto the list, but he had an array of issues concerning his case that made Michaela start thinking about everything else that's happened to the Keating Five and she really doesn't want to be reminded of how bloody her hands have been while caressing Caleb's face.  So while Caleb slowly sank off the list, Laurel migrated to the top. It was the cut of  _ her _ jaw,  _ her _ cunning,  _ her _ glittery blue-green eyes that gave Michaela pause. In the kitchen that night she hadn't been offering up herself because, while she got vibes from Laurel, she didn't want to make a mistake, land flat on her face like she did with Aiden. 

The "problem" with Aiden that made her act (embarrassingly) homophobic was that it was  _ Connor _ who he'd slept with; it was that she didn't want to be his _Beard_ and it pained her to bow to his mother because she was no pawn to be played; it was the rumors that would make it back home to her parents and ruin their reputation.

Believe it or not, they'd insinuated that they'd be okay with whomever Michaela chose. But the community they were a part of didn't take kindly to rainbow outliers. One would think queerness in the black community would be of little issue considering what they went through everyday in America, but in this, ignorance didn't discriminate. Michaela's plans to marry Aiden and move her parents to a better neighborhood were forestalled.

As of now she was revising her plans; they'd have to wait until she was an established defense attorney but she'd make it happen. Even if it meant moving them in with her. 

For a moment, she entertained the thought of a door with "Pratt-Castillo Law Offices" printed on  the glass. A smirk curled her lip. She chuckled softly at herself before going back to making her agenda for the week. Distractions never made her dreams come true.

\---

  
  
Winter blows through and Asher suggests in the class they share aside from Miss Keating's that  they go on a vacation together the week before Christmas.

 

"I...inherited a cabin that's in the mountains. We could all make a trip of it. Have some fun  before we come back." A smile twitches faintly at the corner of his mouth and Michaela's reminded that this is not the Fantastic Frat Boy anymore. He ended up inheriting a fourth of what his father owned if not less thanks to his mother. He's...mellowed...for lack of a better word that will bring up more bloody memories.

Michaela gives him a smile that she hopes is warm and sees Laurel mirroring her, reaching out a hand to Asher's arm. 

 

"Of course Asher. I think we'd all be happy to, " Michaela responds. She looks at Connor who  shrugs.

 

"I didn't have anything planned and Oliver's always wanted to stay in a cabin. I'm up to party in the Appalachians."

 

Asher smiles small, a half grin but it's realer than his last attempt.

 

Maybe it was foolish to think that the cold would bring the group's warmth back with Wes  gone, but they could at least try.

 

\--

 

Michaela and Laurel carpool in Laurel's car and switch when either gets tired. Asher, Connor, and Oliver are in the car in front of them leading the way. 

 

"I'm surprised you managed to fit of all of your things into one luggage bag," Laurel quips from  the driver's seat.

 

Michaela looks affronted. "Do you really think I'm that prissy? Please. This is only a weekend  trip. If it were a whole week, THEN I would've brought all of my sweaters." She pauses, thinking  about the cold. "Maybe I _should've_ ," she utters, her voice hushed.

The corner of Laurel's lips quirk up and she shakes her head but says nothing, choosing to focus on the road. It was darker than she'd expected it to be and the property Asher inherited wasn't that far up the mountain but they were still going up an incline and the gravity pushing them back against their seats wasn't something Laurel wanted to feel for more than an hour at a time. It was a good thing she was driving her Range Rover for this trip.

When Michaela was silent for more than five minutes, Laurel turned slightly to see Michaela with  her headphones in, nodding her head in her own world. The radio had been on and off during the trip but they'd sort of settled into one of their more comfortable silences after Laurel had  hushed the volume to take a call. Constant noise seemed to be something they both found  grating and they'd been in the car for a couple of hours, except for pit-stops. According to Asher, and the whistling wind around them, they were almost there.

 

Out of boredom, Laurel pries.

 

"What are you listening to?"

 

Michaela's eyebrows lift up in slight surprise but she shrugs and turns to the window. "Uhhh...J. Lo...?"

 

"Are you sure? Because you don't sound very sure."

 

Michaela huffs. "I AM listening to J. Lo. Don't judge me."

 

"I'm not judging you."

 

"I can FEEL you judging me. It's your eyebrows."

 

Said eyebrows wrinkle together in confusion. "I am NOT judging you."

 

A beat of silence passes where Michaela just narrows her eyes at Laurel. When she turns her head back to the window, Laurel smirks.

 

"Just because you listen to trash doesn't mean I don't ALSO listen to trash."

 

Michaela scoffs. "There it is. J. Lo isn't trash! She's more like...," Michaela mimes weighing scales with her hands, "...recyclables. Her songs that came out in the 90s to early 2000s have good remixes."

 

"Pfft. Okay name one good one."

 

"The one I'm listening to is 'Ain't It Funny' with Ja Rule."

 

"I...can't remember that off the top of my head. You know. Since Jennifer Lopez REALLY isn't that memorab--OUCH!" Michaela pinches her before unplugging the headphones from her phone. She turns up the volume and hits play.

 

The tune is familiar, nostalgic at best. Laurel nods, acquiescing. "I...do remember this one. I  think this is the only one I kind of liked."

 

"You're terrible."

 

"Truthful."

 

"TERRIBLE."

 

Laurel sighs.

 

Michaela lets the music play, her eyes staring out the front car window. She hums the tune under her breath and seems to space out but comes back around two-thirds into the song to nudge Laurel and sing the words at her. Laurel groans.

 

" _ Hope you realize that now I'm through _ ,"

 

"Ohhh my god."

 

" _ And I don't ever wanna hear from you _ \--It's all true, Laurel, dissing J. Lo is SERIOUS business."

 

"I don't apologize because she isn't _that_ good."

 

Michaela shakes her head and hums through the chorus, and it's enough of a break that Laurel finds herself humming it too. It isn't some sort of cliche movie scene where Michaela's a  _perfect_ singer, but her voice is pretty enough when she's just speaking so it isn't too pitchy, more lilting. They're bobbing their heads enough to mindlessly blend into the outtro which is admittedly, Laurel's favorite part of the song.  Michaela smiles around the lyrics with Laurel and raises her eyebrows, teasing. Somewhere between a silent 'Didn't I tell you this song was good?' and faux-flirting. 

 

" _ Baaaby, is that your girrrrlfriend?, _ " she sways, nudging her elbow into Laurel's side lightly. Laurel snorts. " _ I got my boooyfriend, But maybe we can beeeee friends _ ."

 

Michaela's eyes twinkle and Laurel laughs while cursing mentally. Spending time with Michaela shouldn't be this comfortable. 

 

"Wait--why are we slowing down?"

 

Michaela's voice yanks Laurel out of the moment, music put on pause. The car WAS slowing down.

"Shit. I'm not doing this." Laurel presses harder on the gas pedal but the car kind of sputters and puffs out before slowing to a halt. Laurel puts the car in park, checks for cars behind her (there haven't been any for the hour they've been ascending). "Text Asher and tell him our car stopped." She turns the key, praying for the engine to start back up again. No such luck.

Michaela puts her coat back on to defend herself from the cold when Laurel gets out of the car to meet Asher. He opens the back of his truck and pulls out jumper cables and they lift the hood of Laurel's car to get to work.

Michaela had had the fleeting thought that Laurel bought this car new for the occasion because it looked new and smelled new and the Castillo's had money coming out of their asses. But maybe Laurel just took good care of her things. Maybe someone lent it to her.

She's startled by a tap on the window. It's Laurel, miming for Michaela to start the car.  Michaela leans over and turns the key....it sputters but no go. 

Twice...still nothing. She bites her lip and turns the key hard. 

The car roars to life and Laurel does a cute fist-pump and gives her a thumbs-up before detaching the jumper cables and closing the hood. 

 

The Latina slides into the driver's seat, bringing some of the chill of the outside with her. "That was a close one." There's snow in her hair and dotting her eyelashes. Her nose and cheeks are cherry red from the bite of frigid air. 

Michaela hums in agreement, too distracted to say anything of merit. She restrains the urge to touch Laurel's face by gripping her phone tighter and plugging the headphones back in, because maybe, _just_ maybe it was J. Lo who jinxed Laurel's car. Michaela maintained that dissing J. Lo was a serious offense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song quoted is "Ain't it Funny" by Jennifer Lopez (Murder Remix). I also like to think the song Michaela has queued up after that is "I'm Real".


	4. Marshmallow Goo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marshmallow metaphors & slipping on ice & a cocoa-warm surprise

_“My hands will get dirty holding your rose-shaped heart, because love is like gardening—it’s earthy and takes work to keep it alive.”_  
_― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not FOR SALE_

 

 

The cabin is two stories tall with a terrace overhang, and Asher has to push through the snow to get to the stairs to the front door. Michaela hefts her luggage over a small icy hill only to have it slide somewhat further ahead of her. She wobbles trying to bring it back to her side. 

Laurel snickers and Michaela looks back at her to show her disapproval only to witness Laurel's feet nearly fly out from under her, resulting in her dropping the handle of her suitcase. The plastic smacks to the ice and it slowly slides back down the inclined path way.

"Pft! I'm not helping you," Michaela snorts as she (cautiously) continues up the path to the door.

"Who said I needed _your_ help? I'm a strong, capable--ugh--independent-- _shit_ ," Laurel loses her grip on her suitcase several more times.

"Do you need help?" Oliver asks, coming up behind Laurel with Connor tugging their suitcases behind him. "My hands are free. That is, uh, if you want help."

Laurel gives one last glare to Michaela's back and nods heartily at Oliver. "Yes. Please."

 

 

When Michaela steps into the cabin it's like stepping into an oven with her coat and scarf still on. She realizes she's directly in the living room with the high polished kitchen to her right. The living room has three long caramel brown sofas positioned around an enclosed stone fireplace that Asher's trying to start and a 15 inch television mounted well above it.

Once he starts it, he turns to them (Connor, Laurel, and Oliver stomp their way inside behind Michaela) and spreads his arms.

"Welcome to el cabin de....me?" He looks at Laurel.

"That sentence was botched to begin with but continue."

"Welcome to my cabin." His smile twitches and he looks off to the side. "Uh. I guess I can tell you guys now that we're here that when I said I wanted all of us to get together? I _did_ mean all five of us--before Oliver. Not that I don't want Oliver here."

"No, I get it. I think?" Oliver replies looking at Connor. Connor looks just as perplexed.

One of Michaela's eyebrows raises up high enough that she feels like it could be near her hairline. "Meaning...?"

She hears a creak on the stairs past the living room and they all turn their heads and pause.

"Meaning that Wes has been uh...up here. In this cabin after...Annalise," Asher nervously replies.

The boy in question comes into view leaning on the terrace of the stairs and craning his neck down towards them. He has scruff on his face from not shaving and looks tired but he gives them a small smile.

Honestly this kid was going to give Michaela a heart-attack one day.

"OH MY GOD."

"WES"

"What the fuck, dude!"

Michaela nearly drops all of her shit on the couches wanting to run towards the staircase, but she remembers Asher as the rest of them move past her.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner???" she asks.

Asher looks truthfully sorry as he rubs his hands together. "Uh, he didn't want you guys to know yet. I was respecting that."

Michaela looks back at Wes to see that he's at the foot of the stairs coming out of a hug with Laurel. Connor and Oliver stand by, Connor shaking his head and Oliver looking happy but confused. Laurel looks at Asher then Michaela expectantly. Michaela huffs and nods belatedly at Asher's explanation, his "don't-shoot-the-messenger" expression, setting her luggage down and undoing her coat. Her heels clack on the wood of the floor as she walks over to Wes with what she hopes is an unreadable expression but it may be more like a glare with how Laurel's wincing and Wes is grimacing.

 

"Michaela-," Connor starts but Michaela holds up one finger in his direction as she stands a step away from the boy who's been missing for who knows how many months.

"No text, not ONE phone call, " is what comes out of her mouth and for a moment she feels like Molly Weasley when she sent Ron that Howler message. "We could've helped you--"

Wes looks at her then. Really looks at her, like he's saying 'How, exactly? What more could you do?' and Michaela bites down on her words. Out of the Five, Asher and Laurel were the ones that actually had means/money to really help him. Laurel also wasn't up in Wes's face about him contacting Asher over her.

"Is it because you thought we would've blamed you?" Michaela's desperate to find an answer as to why he didn't come to her at all. She _did_ have the habit of judging too quickly and thinking that maybe that was the reason stung her. "None of us would've--I never would've--"

He leans down and wraps his long arms around her shoulders in a hug and he smells like he might need a shower but she ignores it in favor of shutting up and absorbing that he was physically here and not dead.

"I just really needed to get my thoughts in order," he mutters near her ear. "I'm...okay now."

Michaela sighs against his shoulder. Is silent for a blessed minute. Then-

"If you disappear like that again at least _text_ me that you're alive and okay, damn it."

"Yes, mother."

That ends the hug as Michaela swats him in the back of the head and storms back off to the living room to collect her luggage.

 

Laurel's heart warms at how Michaela seems to unwind from her tight coil after that, shoulders untensed and grins less guarded. She even shoots one at Laurel from over the kitchen island when the Five migrate to the fireplace for chit chat. Laurel grins just as genuinely. When Michaela squeezes between the Latina and Wes on the couch as they're joking about smores, forearm resting on Laurel's shoulder, Laurel's insides feel like marshmallow goo.

Asher's cabin in the Appalachians _definitely_ ended up being warmer than Laurel thought.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided this fic wouldn't be the same without him, so here he is. he's taken a year off of law school to recollect himself and Asher seemed like a good choice to lend a hand as a "bro". I felt Laurel would've already had time to work over why Wes wouldn't come to her and would be less offended than Michaela who kind of jumps to certain thoughts sometimes. My head-canon obviously is that to Michaela, Wes is her very tall son. 
> 
> this chap was sort of shorter than other chapters but i feel like it's better for it. this is also seeming more like a story and less like a drabble which is good? Next chap they'll still be in the cabin so there'll be Michaela/Laurel cuddle fluff & all-around Five fluff. B/c that's what I'm here for. The fluff.
> 
> Thanks again for reading/kudos'ing/bookmarking and commenting. Critique is welcome as well.


	5. not fighting fair in fake-fights is fair game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> snowball fights & cocoa & slight panic(!) but it'll be ok soon

_Dragons breathing flame_  
_on my counterpane_  
_That doesn't bother me at all._  
_-Maya Angelou, "Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All"_

 

Michaela isn't sure what she expects shuffling into the kitchen at ten in the morning, but it isn't Laurel hunched on her seat, feet perched up under her like some lion-maned bird-of-prey. There's a plate of pancakes and eggs in front of her that she's stuffing into her face while looking down at her phone. A cup of coffee sits steaming to the right of the plate.

  
Laurel occasionally looks up out the windowed sliding doors to the patio. A thick blanket of snow made the fluff covering the ground even higher. It swallows up at least three feet of tree trunk and it was probably bound to reach three and a half feet since the snow was still coming down.

  
Michaela grimaces at the brightness and glances back down at Laurel's bedhead. Michaela had fixed her hair back into a bun at least before coming down but like Laurel she was in her pajamas still, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders for extra warmth. There was no pressure to keep up appearances here, in this small cabin plopped what might as well be the middle of nowhere. Michaela wondered how bad it was to be fonder of how Laurel looked eating than poised and put together. She's caught staring when Laurel turns to acknowledge her presence and Michaela bites her lip to keep from startling.  
  
Laurel smiles, looks down at the blanket, and then smirks.  
"Ah, la viejita returns."

Michaela rolls her eyes, too tired to form a rebuttal, and looks at the plate on the counter--there were leftover pancakes but barely any eggs left.  
"You made breakfast for only yourself. How considerate of you."

"Hey, we got here in my car. You're the one that took up most of my trunk space."  
  
"Oh yeah...your car...,"Michaela takes something out of the fridge and flips on the electric stove, using the same pan Laurel used. "You mean the one that nearly broke down on the way here?"  
  
"It got us here though."  
  
"Mm."

Laurel sighs but stands when Michaela opens the package she took out of the fridge. Michaela can feel her at least foot away from her left side.  
  
Laurel gasps. "How did you find the bacon?? I was looking for that!"  
  
"Tch. Not hard enough, apparently."  
  
"That's _so_ not fair."  
  
"You sleep in, you win."  
  
"Dude. Let me get a piece."  
  
"No."  
  
"Michaelaaaa. Please."  
  
"I don't know...you're _really_ good at making food for yourself."  
  
Laurel sits her chin on Michaela's shoulder and Michaela nearly drops the spatula she's holding. "I'll be your _best friend_."  
  
Michaela huffs out a short laugh as she flips the bacon. "I didn't know people still used that line."  
  
"Please?" Laurel says, digging her chin down further into Michaela's trapezius muscle where Michaela was ticklish.  
  
Okay so actually Michaela's whole neck was ticklish--but Laurel didn't need to know that. Michaela felt her anxiety levels rising fast with the heat in her face.  
  
"Stop. Being. Weird," Michaela said, slapping at Laurel's face with her free hand. Laurel only stretches an arm around Michaela's waist while muttering "ouch" repeatedly, reaching into the pan and yanking out a piece of bacon, still hot. She hisses and bounces it from hand to hand, running away from Michaela and to her plate.  
  
"How DARE you!"  
  
Laurel cackles, back in her seat and perched like a _vulture._ Michaela scowled.  
  
If this treachery wasn't the first step towards  _Lord of the Flies_ mayhem, Michaela didn't know what else to call it.

 

  
Asher proposes a snowball fight once everyone's in the living room and awake (more or less).  
  
Well he actually just says:  
  
"Look at that fucking snow! Snowball fight in fifteen-- Wes. _Buddy._ You're on my team. Two versus two versus _two_!" He points two fingers at Michaela and Laurel at the last bit and Michaela groans.  
  
Before the Southerner can reject this fresh breath of childishness, Laurel chimes, "You're on," and dashes off the couch to get dressed.  
  
Michaela groans again but walks more slowly to change her clothes. She couldn't leave Laurel by herself.

 

Or she DEFINITELY could—in fact she SHOULD just run back into the house, she thinks as she jams one foot down into the crust of freshly fallen white. The snow crumbles into the gap between her boot and pant leg. Laurel’s already further ahead of her, hopping to the “battlefield” eagerly where Wes’s long-legged self has already gotten; it’s a slight clearing on an incline, the trees closest to the edge of the clearing dark-rooted and bare. Asher was closer to the clearing than Laurel and Oliver and Connor were a bit ahead of Michaela.

  
Michaela curses to herself, shaking the snow out of her boot and tucking her pant legs securely into her boots before standing back up and resuming her struggle.  
Laurel looks back at her and shakes her head.  
  
“Michaela.”  
  
“Laurel—, “she kicks her foot up out of the near knee height snow and hops forward, “I am from-“, another hop, “the South. We don’t get knee-high snow mountains.”  
  
Connor snickered, “I think you got stuck with the wrong partner for this, Laurel.”  
  
“Why don’t you just step where someone else already stepped?” Laurel suggests, ignoring Connor’s snark.  
  
“What?” Michaela looks around in front of her. Wes’s footprints are further away, Connor and Oliver’s footprints start more or less where Wes’s are. Even Laurel started at least a couple of feet further away from how far Michaela’s willing to jump.  
  
Laurel sighs and shuffles back through the snow towards Michaela and Michaela just stands there dumbly, unsure of what else to do. When Laurel gets to her, she grabs Michaela’s gloved hands in her red mittens, tugging her forward.  
  
“If you step where I’ve stepped, it’s easier. I mean. Unless you want to go that whole ‘the road less traveled route’—”  
  
Michaela glares, squeezes Laurel’s palms tighter once, vise-like to get her to shut up as she focuses on placing her feet correctly in the footprints that are near her shoe size.

 

  
The boundary rules for bases are etched into the snow, a timer of 20 minutes set for how high they can build their fortresses before the war begins. Michaela notes the incline northeast of where they’re standing, interjects that it’s theirs before Asher stops talking.  
  
Michaela and Laurel’s snow fort is a little under half their height before the quarter of an hour is up and the boys start flinging snowballs. It’s one hit, one “kill” so to speak. They add to their snow fort hurriedly, snow from Wes and Asher’s fort to their left deemed the most dangerous because of Wes’s height. Snowballs coming from the right side never quite made it because Connor’s aim was super shitty –Michaela made sure he knew as she lobbed another snowball almost getting him in the face.  
  
Laurel lands one on Asher and goes so far as to whoop, bringing her hands up in the air before she realized it made her a bigger target and sunk back down. They hear Wes yell and Michaela pops her head up in time to see Wes vaulting over his fort Action-Man-style and sprinting towards them.  
  
“KAMIKAZE REVENGE,” he screams.

Asher whoops from back near his fort and the girls scream in pure alarm, Michaela tugging Laurel back before Wes launches himself at their fort in a dive, completely demolishing it and leaving them open to Connor and Oliver.  
  
They’re pelted where they lay, Michaela screeching and covering her face.  
“OkAY! Okay! This isn’t even fair! At all!”  
  
Oliver shrugs, smiles sheepishly because most of the snowballs that actually hit their marks came from him. Connor kisses him on the side of the head and Michaela faux-gags. Wes, still laying on-top of their fort in front of them pops up his head from where it’s been face down in the snow and beams at the girls.  
  
" _All's_ fair in a snowball fight."  
  
“I hate you,” Michaela mutters. She lets her head fall back into the snow as Asher runs over to help Wes up and congratulate him on a sabotage-well-done.  
  
When Laurel sighs, Michaela becomes conscious of the fact that Laurel’s head is resting on her stomach from how they landed. 

“I totally saw this happening,” Laurel mumbles as she watches the boys hoot and holler.  
  
“I didn’t,” Michaela grumbles. “Most wars fought on hills were won by the force that had higher ground. We should’ve won.”  
  
Laurel’s head turns and Michaela feels her eyes on her, so mostly out of not wanting Laurel to be staring up her nose, she tilts her head down to meet her gaze.  
  
“What?” Michaela asks at the shit-eating grin on Laurel’s face.  
  
“Why, I didn’t expect you to take this so seriously, _Lieutennant_  Michaela.”  
  
Michaela rolls out from under Laurel intending to let her head drop but Laurel hangs onto her coat.  
  
“Get off of me!”  
  
Laurel hangs on tighter in response.  
  
Asher clears his throat, walks over to them, “Now, now ladies. No need to fight between yourselves—loser concessions include hot chocolate and cook—oh.”  
  
Laurel had scrambled up at ‘hot chocolate’, running lightning speed towards the house, Michaela clambering to her feet after her, not caring how much snow she's pooling in her boots.

 

Laurel’s on her second cup of hot chocolate, sipping in front of the fire when Michaela sits down on the rug, a couple of feet away from her with hot chocolate and a plate of chocolate chip cookies from the new batch Asher made. They’ve both changed out of their wet clothes into sweats—Michaela looking cutely snug in a turquoise hoodie.  
  
“Can I have some?” Laurel says, setting her hot chocolate to the side and leaning towards Michaela.  
  
Michaela eats one, looks down her nose at Laurel before saying, “You stole my bacon.”  
  
“That was so long ago.”  
  
Michaela narrows her eyes at her as she eats another cookie. Laurel pouts.  
“You can’t eat all of those by yourself.”  
  
“ _Watch_ me.”  
  
“Noooooooo,” Laurel leans her body further, turning her head to the fire in order to do so, and stretches out her arm. She can reach Michaela’s left hand but not the plate that’s on the hoarder’s right side. She grabs onto Michaela’s wrist. “Ha! Now you can’t eat and drink at the same time.”  
  
Michaela takes a sip from her mug, deadpanning, “Oh no. Whatever shall I do.”  
  
“Give me cookies,” Laurel whines, grazing her thumb against the inside of Michaela’s wrist.  
  
Michaela nearly chokes on her cookie but rolls her eyes and acquiesces. She takes one more before setting the plate down in Laurel’s line of vision. Laurel makes a sound between a squeal and a pterodactyl screech and sits up quickly. Michaela only thinks it’s a tiny bit endearing.  
  
She turns her head to focus on the fire crackling in front of her. It slows something in her, despite the pick up of the whistling winds outside.  
  
Despite the nudge of Laurel's shoulder against hers as she offers up the plate again.  
  
Michaela shakes her head mutely, takes another sip of her hot chocolate, and doesn't think to put an inch between them in exchange for the added warmth at her side.

“I don’t want to go back home,” Laurel sighs.  
  
“Is home that bad?”  
  
Laurel turns her head to fix Michaela with a look that says ‘Guess,’ and Michaela winces in sympathy.  
  
Michaela ponders if telling Laurel about her own family’s Christmas traditions would be a dick move considering Laurel’s weren’t so nice. Then she thinks, _Well if I have to think about it, now_ probably _isn’t the best time._

“What about your family?” Laurel prods. “It’s weird seeing you this silent.”  
  
Okay. It _wouldn’t_ be a dick move to share but now Michaela wants it to be. She scowls.

“Am I not allowed to enjoy the simplicity of a fire??”

Laurel’s smile twitches at the corner, making Michaela realize she’s been baited in some way.  
  
“No, no. You’re totally allowed. I think I’m just used to the insults and the whole foot-stomping thing and you haven’t done that once today.”  
  
“I do NOT do a foot stomping thing.”  
  
Laurel chuckles. “ Okay.”

Michaela folds her arms over her knees and glares at Laurel, eyelashes lit orange by the flame. Laurel smiles, unafraid where Asher might’ve already backed off.  
_Stupid-Laurel and her stupid-make-up-less face and her stupid….stupid…oooh!_  
  
Michaela’s still peevish when she points to the front of Laurel’s shirt right at her collarbone, “There’s a crumb on your shirt.”  
  
Laurel looks down out of reflex and realizes the old trick way too late—Michaela whips her finger up to flick Laurel in the nose and crows a loud “Ha HA,” not ashamed of her childishness. Laurel had asked for it anyway. What Michaela didn’t expect was Laurel’s quick recovery, mock fury on her face as she lunged for Michaela’s arms. Michaela yelped in alarm and kept Laurel at a further distance by shoving her foot into her stomach.  
  
"Ow!" A devious look passes Laurel’s face a split second before she digs her fingers into the sole of Michaela’s socked foot.  
  
Michaela screeches and yanks her foot away like she’d stuck it in the fireplace, allowing Laurel to lean further and grab one of Michaela's wrists.  
  
Laurel thought it'd be easy to reach over her and snatch the other arm--but as Laurel attemps this, she catches the confident tilt of Michaela's head and the purse of her lips--a cat playing with a mouse--before ending up tossed onto the floor, narrowly avoiding Michaela's cup of hot cocoa.  
  
She'd been flipped. She stared up at the wooden ceiling of the cabin, stunned, unmoving.  
  
Michaela looks like she's in the middle of shifting to her feet to see if she's okay when Laurel turns her head to look at Michaela. The apologetic expression on the southerner's face is outplayed by her poorly held in giggling.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
"You _flipped_ me."  
  
"Sometimes I just forget my own strength," Michaela says, flipping her hair over her shoulder dramatically.  
  
Laurel scoffs and sits-up just to shove Michaela, petty over the loss, which nearly starts it up all over again until Wes comes into the living room, cup of cocoa in hand. He's in loose jeans and a t-shirt, snow still melting in his hair. 

"Are you two fighting again?"  
  
"No," the girls answer in unison with wide smiles.  
  
"Did you go back outside?" Michaela replies, directing the question at Wes but nudging her pointy elbow into Laurel's torso.  
  
"Yeah--Asher wanted to shovel the driveway but it kind of seems pointless with the storm that's supposed to hit tonight and go on through tomorrow afternoon."  
  
Laurel's eyebrows arch. "How many inches?" She nudges Michaela back with her own elbow but softer as an afterthought.  
  
Wes grimaces. "Six or seven. We...might be stuck here for a little longer than we expected."

  
Michaela pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes in as slowly and as she exhales, staving off what felt like a panic attack. She doesn't remember ever not being home for Christmas. She counted on Christmas with her family to bring her back some stability before continuing into a new stressful year. Once the storm hit the phonelines could go down. She feels her body stand abruptly.  
  
"I have to make a call," Michaela blurts and dashes out of the room quicker than Laurel can blink.

  
Laurel always doubted storms would come down as hard as reporters said they would but being in the mountains was different from being on more level ground. The threat of being literally snowed in past Christmas was a bit off-putting in that she wouldn't see her _abuela_ or her cousins until virtually next year--but she also wouldn't have to deal with her mom and dad's disapproving lectures over the dinner table.  
  
Wes didn't seem like he cared much about it at all from where he was reclined on the couch. Laurel thought about asking him if he was coming back to school, then thought better of it.  
She also thought about going after Michaela, looking at the stairs but Wes shook his head, catching her line of vision. "Just let her be. She'll come back out when she wants to. If you prod her she'll get super angry."  
  
"Ah." Laurel realized belatedly that this was common sense with Michaela. She could be as content and in-the-moment as earlier today and retreat into herself the next, but even sitting in front of the fire earlier, her silence was less her putting her guard up and more just Michaela being content. Laurel folded her arms over her knees and looked out the window, the whirl of the snow making her scoot closer to the crackling flames.  
  
Wes noticed the slight pout on Laurel's face but said nothing, smiling into his cup. Just like Laurel seemed to be waiting on Michaela, he'd wait on whatever it was between the girls to blossom.  
(And if Wes was the betting kind, he'd _definitely_ put money on something happening by the end of the snow-in.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying figure out where to cut off this chapter. -__-   
> It's been awhile 'cuz of the usual college things but I do want this to be something I finish eventually, even though it spawned out of drabbles.
> 
> (Sidenote that isn't HTGAWM related: I may start up the Clarke/Raven "Middle School to High School AU" I have in mind because I've been pooling ideas for awhile and Season 3 of The 100 started up. It also might give me something to update when I'm blocked with this Laurela story.
> 
> The concept of Raven as a smol yet scrappy nerd in an over-sized jacket that likes things like AKIRA and sci-fi comics greatly appeals to me as well as the idea of Clarke as a girl who's also a smol yet sporty, guilt-burdened botany/anatomy nerd. I'm probably gonna type up a timeline for the story/them @ work today. ewe
> 
> Also I'm tired of swimming thru other The 100 HS AU's that list them as a side pairing and then have like one sentence on em.)


End file.
